Thursday, July 02, 2009

A very good Czech EU presidency is over

According to 2/3 of the Czech citizens, the Czech EU presidency was a success.

Those six months have helped the center-right Civic Democratic Party (ODS) that was largely controlling the first government during the presidency to catch up with the socialists (ČSSD). While they were lagging by 10+ percentage points half a year ago, now they're actually ahead of the socialists! ODS has won the European elections in Czechia and quite suddenly, there are nonzero chances that they could even win the real national elections in October.

It was shown that President Klaus was correct about many things, too. First of all, the rotating presidency doesn't change the actual balance of power in Europe. The Czech officials may have become more visible and they had to show their organizing skills and hospitality more often but they didn't really become more influential. The character of the decisions was largely unaffected.

This video that I uploaded - the #1 YouTube hit for "Czech EU Presidency" - was controversial at the beginning. But after 38,000 views and 54 votes, the average is 5 stars (i.e. more than 4.75 stars). There's nothing controversial about it: it's a good video.

Believe me or not, I was reading everything on the EU2009.CZ website. It was a very decently designed website and the amount of activity was rather impressive. The presidency had to solve a lot of issues along the ways that were determined mostly by the big players. But that included a solution to the Russia-Ukraine gas crisis, a helping hand to cure the havoc in Gaza, and other things.

Just like I predicted, the markets are way above the levels experienced half a year ago. The increase has been near 50% for many national stock market indices. It is pretty clear that the "crisis" has already culminated - or, to be even more modest, the markets already bet that its culmination point is located somewhere in 2009 or so. The "crisis" suddenly looks very finite.

Another thing that was expected was a continuous flow of lies and nasty attacks against the presidency by the politically correct media across Europe. These attacks have never stopped and they have never had anything to do with the reality. The hateful, politically correct journalists should go bankrupt and die of hunger as soon as possible.

Topolánek's center-right government was removed in the middle of the presidency, mostly by the socialists in the national Parliament. While I was irritated by these destructive socialist acts, I would be irritated by them regardless of their timing. They have been trying to remove the government for years and their fifth attempt simply succeeded.

I am flabbergasted by the suggestions of some people - in fact, very many people and most journalists - that the governments should never fall when they're responsible for the EU presidency. Such an opinion flagrantly contradicts the basic rules of democracy. If someone becomes more powerful than he was a month earlier, does it mean that he or she should become unfirable? Wow. I am simply shocked by the people who think so. According to this logic, it was very correct that Stalin remained a dictator when he needed to kill tens of millions of people.

This suggestion also reminds me of the opinions - shared by people like Tommaso Dorigo and hordes of obnoxious left-wing types - that public figures, including presidents, university presidents, and maybe even instructors at universities (and I am talking about Berlusconi, Summers, and myself) should be stripped of their human rights such as the freedom of speech and the basic privacy rights. Wow.

If the basic rights can't be guaranteed even for such people, how can they be guaranteed for others? And more generally, where does the inequality directed against the success come from? Let me tell you: it comes from Marx's books. It's nothing else than the struggle of the proletariat and the lumpenproletariat against all the successful, clever, decent, and handsome people. But let's return to the question whether governments can be removed during EU presidencies. There's no non-Marxist method to justify the suppression of the human rights of more powerful or wealthier people.

The probability that a government is removed by the national Parliament should be equal during its EU presidency and outside its EU presidency. The stakes may be higher and a forced resignation may be more harmful during the EU presidency: but a continuing rule of a bad government may also be more harmful during the EU presidency than outside it.

If a Parliament thinks that a government is bad, it should be able to remove the government - and it should actually remove the government - regardless of the current situation concerning the EU presidency. In my optics, this is a fundamental principle of democracy. The EU presidency can't become a tool to blackmail or restrict Parliaments. And I am emphasizing this principle despite the fact that I strongly disagree with the opinion of the Parliament where the socialists and traitors had become important enough to remove Topolánek's government which was, in my opinion, a good government.

Also, the replacement of the government was no catastrophe even though some people loved to suggest that it was. The neutral bureaucratic government led by PM Jan Fischer was able to continue in all the mechanical tasks - while avoiding any kind of political bias in its activity (which is better than the previous situation for the socialists, and worse than the previous situation for the rightwingers). That's what should naturally happen when a government collapses.

Czechia has handed the EU presidency Pilsner beer barrel (the official beer of the presidency haha) to Sweden, while sailing on the Vltava river: see SE2009.EU for further news (what a chaotic website with irrelevant stuff on it!).

After I have seen the Swedish prime minister who is a genuinely obnoxious sourball and after I have heard twice that the fight against a law of Nature, namely climate change, is his priority, I am so fed up by them that I will try to protect my good mood by largely avoiding EU-level politics for the 6 following months. These people are boring, disgusting, and dishonest opportunists riding on a dirty neo-socialist bandwagon.